HORRIFIC CONFECTION by Juliet Cook - BlazeVOX

Self Portrait as Gingerbread Girl
How I long for a dress that flaps open;
don’t care if the clasps are mismatched.
If only I could escape this edible mess
of shams. Flimflam frosting that offers an illusion
of frilly frock. Who wouldn’t want to nibble my hem off,
eventually behead me. Obliterate my squiggle
mouth with its creepy insinuation that I shall transform
black currants into electric currents. In spite of
my seemingly permanent bedragglement.
In spite of my peculiar unbuttonability.
If it was up to him I’d be preserved this way,
under plastic. Me in my speechless phase. A still life
of each stage of the strip tease leading up to his grand finale–
gleeful slice to the neck. No blood, but disconnection; but
I didn’t ask to be cut in the shape of a girl.
How I long to be abstract; imbued
with enough pepper to render me
ruined as a ginger snap; unable to be construed.
Oh the spicy misdeeds I’d devise
and implement if only these buttons were real.
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